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Gender Equality pp 1–10Cite as

Feminization of Poverty: Causes and Implications

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Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ((ENUNSDG))

Definition

The “feminization of poverty” refers to the phenomenon that women and children are disproportionately represented among the world’s poor compared to men.

Introduction

According to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (2000), “women are the world’s poor.” In almost all societies, women have higher poverty rates than men (Casper et al. 1994); in fact, among the 1.5 billion people living on 1 dollar or less a day, the majority are women and children (United Nations 2015). This persistent pattern of economic inequality led American sociologist Diana Pearce to coin the term the feminization of poverty, after documenting how, over time, women and children have become disproportionately represented among the population of low-income individuals in the United States and globally. Specifically, Pearce found that in the United States, two-thirds of the poor over age 16 were women (Pearce 1978). By 1983, nearly one-half of all poor families were female-headed...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sociology, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

    MacKenzie A. Christensen

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  1. MacKenzie A. Christensen
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Correspondence to MacKenzie A. Christensen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. FTZ-ALS, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences FTZ-ALS, Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

  2. Ctr Neurosci & Cell Biology, 1 Floor, Univ Coimbra, Edf Fac Medicina, Coimbra, Portugal

    Anabela Marisa Azul

  3. Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Passo Fundo University Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Passo Fundo, Brazil

    Luciana Brandli

  4. Istinye University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Pinar Gökcin Özuyar

  5. International Centre for Thriving, University of Chester, Chester, UK

    Tony Wall

Section Editor information

  1. Environmental Science and Management, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA

    Melissa Haeffner

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Christensen, M.A. (2019). Feminization of Poverty: Causes and Implications. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A., Brandli, L., Özuyar, P., Wall, T. (eds) Gender Equality. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70060-1_6-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70060-1_6-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-70060-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-70060-1

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